Lenovo Caught Installing Immortal Crapware - Comments Page 1

While you say there is nothing you can do to stop this, loading Linux, instead of Windows, will disallow this.

Lenovo could never be trusted. It is a Chinese company operating in a Communist country. It has no choice but to do anything their government tells them to do.
Since the built in crapware installs its self on Windows, wipe the drive and install a non-windows OS. My current favorite is Linux Mint, but any of the Ubuntu variants or Redhat/CentOS should confound the crapware attempts at installation. It is, however, possible that software could operate only at the BIOS level.

Great and invaluable information on Lenovo, Bob and I am delighted to add that name to Bertie's Big Book of Obscenities!

This is a company owned by an entity in the People's Republic of China. Does anyone else think there might be a little government-inspired motive behind this? Remember what country shipped out pre-hacked card readers to Target? And is believed to be behind some of the other biggest consumer and US government hacks lately?

Does anyone feel comfortable knowing the greatest majority of our technology pieces and parts are manufactured and assembled in the PRC?

We should all know by now that privacy is a joke on te interwebs but this goes too far and is inexcusable from ANY PC maker.
I therefore would refuse to accept any mumbling apology from the executive because they know exactly what they are doing and allowing a programmer to do this sort of thing without checking the code is irresponsible.

Never have and most certainly will never buy a Lenovo product.

In the late 1990's, the PRC's Red Army promulgated the strategic doctrine of cybersurveillance, a campaign dubbed by FBI and others as "Titan Rain". Efforts have only escalated since then.

In fact, probes between the US and PRC had become so obstructive, China's president would not take delivery of a new Boeing executive airliner until technicians had scrubbed it for listening devices.

So, who can say with certainty that any computer device manufactured under control of the PRC is free of "bugs"? Your next laptop could become the latest node of some strange networking across the world. The bugs are all but undetectable under normal use by normal people who do not know the term "sniffer".

Bob,


Much appreciate the link to Lenovo's announcement on this matter.


I'm bothered by their nomenclature in the list, however; it doesn't appear to reflect the names which I would expect to be on the case; those look more like serial numbers or something. (My Lenovo computer bears the label "Ideapad I405" -- which isn't on the list.)


Has anyone any idea how we might get a map from the model numbers they've listed to the names under which those models actually sell?


--Phil Sevetson

Just to say thank you Bob. Been researching laptops to replace my PC and have put Lenovo on my "never buy this brand" laptop. So glad that I am subscribed to your newsletter.

Hmmmmm.

"There is no excuse for buffer-overflow flaws existing in any modern software."

In that case it seems it was an easy catch?

So where is the vulnerability that this one covers up?

China has big buildings full of computer hackers working for China first last and everywhere in between. They are experts in doing this stuff. IF this was one of their ploys it could only have been to cover up their main intent.

OK I know I'm paranoid but that doesn't mean they're not out to get me......

Jon

P.S. Half in jest and twice in earnest!

Bob,

I love ThinkPad laptops and have used them exclusively for 20 years. The X-series in particular are great products. Not to excuse Lenovo for installing this software and concealing it from their customers.

Glad to read that they have (hopefully) stopped this practice, and that the software was not installed on ThinkPad machines.

Inexcusable behavior! That's what I call it.

I am so angry at Lenovo that I posted this article on my Facebook page and tagged a few geeky friends I know so that they would get the heads up on this.

Thank you, Bob, for this valuable information and as always a great article.

I once was about to change my company over to Lenovo laptops because I was getting a high number of failure with our current manufacturer. That was right around the time the "Superfish" fiasco was happening. So I decided to wait and "investigate' a little more. As I looked into the company (knowing it was formerly IBM that was purchased by a Chinese company) I found other disturbing facts. Although the "Superfish" was not supposed to have been loaded onto "business edition" laptop, it still left me with some doubts about the decision making abilities of this company. That, along with out things I heard and read left me with too much doubt to move forward on purchasing our laptops from them. This latest issue only confirms my reservation on purchasing from them...just my 2 cents worth.

Microsoft censured Lenovo for ... - A little bit two-faced methinks considering Windows 10 WiFi Sense and Update distribution technologies you recently commented on. As I commented on "Ask Leo", the user community should all together boycott Windows 10 until Microsoft allows users to "opt in" only, and now it would be a good idea to boycott Lenovo. As they say, "fool me once, shame on you, but fool me twice, shame on me!"

Now, a question I would appreciate your comments on, or maybe even an article: Based upon the ideas behind Windows Platform Binary Table (WPBT), and the fact that the BIOS is in a PROM which can be reprogrammed, is there any way that the PROM might be reloaded by a task running on the machine, other than the "stand-alone" version of the utility that loads it, without being detected by the end-user? This would be the ultimate root-kit virus!

Cheers

Cheers

Never (repeat, Never) trusted China-owned product if privacy is ever a concern. Goes for Lenovo, same for Hu.... and Xi.....!

Surprised..?? Why!!!

This is INEXCUSABLE & OUTRAGEOUS!!!
WTH is WRONG with these BOZOS/IDIOTS???
(other than the obvious "retro cranial-
rectal inversion")

Thanx for the list, but the only name I need is Lenovo. Menomo lenovo.

Would replacing the lse giles with safe files of the same names counter this or does it check contents as well as that files with those names are present? I used that trick to beat some malware a few years back when it kept replacing itself when I deleted its files. Not a long-term fix but useful sometimes.

Also I'd say if Microsoft is going to do this wbt thing they should provide ways for anti-malware tools to check what is there.

What if one replaces the motherboard? Would that nip the problem in the bud?

EDITOR'S NOTE: Well, yes. The only thing left at that point would be the power supply and the fans. :-)

How sad! Though it is a Chinese Comppany, Lenovo, as successor to IBM, builds quality machines. I have had several in the past, and presently have two Thinkpads, an L520, which is my primary laptop, and a T61, which I use for testing software and when I need a 2nd laptop if I am working on some project that requires a couple of machines. Thankfully, both are too old to have this software on them.

But I really like Lenovo machines and this article makes me a bit hesitant to purchase one in the future. Yes, they have stopped adding theis feature in the firmware now, but what will they be doing in the future?

Is theis a Lenovo thing, or a Chinese (built) thing? I really can't be hesitant to buy a Chinese machine as they are building most of the new computers in the world. Build your own, you say? Most motherboards, too, come from China, and the motherboard is where the software mentioned in the article is installed.

So what do you do? Some here have mentioned Linux as the solution. Linux will be affected too. The worm is not in the operating system, it is in the firmware. How about Apple? Apple machines are built in China! Most Android tablets are built in China. You can't get away from it. China is the world source for both quality and crap electronics. China!

Maybe we all should learn to speak Chinese?